Safe following distance?

[Grizzo]

personally for me...4 to 5 seconds behind ...always leave myself a good space






but then I am a bit of a nanna on the road...

Yep same for me, I always like to leave a little space.

[NordieBoy]

1) I can't be covering the front brake all the time and don't

Really?
I always cover the front brake. My forefingers are always resting on the clutch and brake levers. It's just where they go when I hop on a bike.

[NordieBoy]

Don't bother trying. Stopping from 100 kmh to 0 in 2 seconds is 1.4G. The very best tyres will only permit a 0.9 G decelleration under ideal conditions.

I dunno.
Get a wasp in your helmet and it's amazing how quickly you can stop. Laws of physics be damned.

[BMWST?]

a motorcyclist should have a pretty good reaction time(ie getting fingers onto front brake,and most bikes will stop pretty quickly.So when you have to slam on your brakes because the car in front has to stop suddenly you should stop clear of him.....MOST(not all) motorcyclists follow too close,and a hell of a lot of cars too esp on motorways...We should all observe the 2 sec rule and visible distance in front stopping diistance..we will come of worst if we dont.

[Badjelly]

...It is the main thought in my mind everytime I take a blind corner - can I stop in the distance I can see? Anyone who says you can't always ride like that, is talking bullshit. You can - and you should...

I agree. You can and you should ride so you can stop in the distance you can see. I always try to do that and I think I usually succeed.

Riding so you can stop in half the distance you can see, as you're supposed to do on roads without a centre line, is more problematic. Just imagine you're on a road that's too narrow for two vehicles to pass each other. Could you stop if you met yourself coming the other way? Hmmm, maybe not. It means going pretty slow, and it assumes the other guy is going equally slow.

Following the 2-second following rule and the "stop in the clear distance ahead" rule helps you cope with a lot of things. It means you should be able to stop if the vehicle in front brakes hard and unexpectedly and it means you shouldn't hit a stationary object that's been left on the road. It doesn't allow for everything. It doesn't allow for stock or pedestrians that move onto the road suddenly, it doesn't allow for vehicles that come onto your side of the road round a blind corner, it doesn't allow for the vehicle in front of you running into something solid (though you should have seen that coming and backed off) and it doesn't allow for debris that appear when the vehicle in front drives over them (eg when some bastard stole some headstones from Karori Cemetery and left them on Karori Rd). There's no simple rule you can follow that will protect you from everything.

[Chrislost]

The greatest single fault of the NZ motorist. The insistent notion that someone is responsible for ensuring that there will never be an obstruction on the far side of that hill or bend.

is this not coming from the fact that the police advertise that they are over every blind crest / round every corner waiting for the speeding motorists, and that there wont be any cos theres a cop there...

right?

[scracha]

2s rule is the bare minimum in the dry for a car. If the car in front does an emergency stop then most bikers following just 2s behind will run into the back of the vehicle in front. Talking about bikes weighing less isn't valid as cars have 4 sticky rubber things stopping them whereas in an emergency stop bikes tend to just have 1 sticky rubber thing. Empty tankers with lots and lots of wheels stop unbelievably quickly in the wet or dry. I think Alex Barros is the only guy who'd maybe get away with 4s in the wet against your average car with ABS.

But 2s is better than the 0.2s I see most bikers following other vehicles on the roads.

Overtaking: you're on a bike. There is no need to drive up the car in front's ass. In fact, even in a car there's no need to drive up the car in front's ass. Pull back a little, look for a gap (much easier to see when you're not right up their arse), check mirror, indicate, time it, start accelerating, check your blind spot and pull out to the other lane well before you're up the other vehicles ass and you'll have a far bigger speed differential (and thus safer overtake) than trying to floor it from right behind the other vehicle. If more drivers learned to drive in ickle engined vehicles they'd know how to do this.

Stopping in visible distance...ok, I'm a naughty boy sometimes but cresting blind hills and going round blind bends at warp speed is bonkers. Pick a speed where you'll at least be able to change your line, brake a little and survive (e.g. hit the thing at 30 instead of 80) if there's something strange round the next bend.

[DarkLord]

I'm all for the two second rule as well. Failure to comply to that rule resulted in a nasty surprise when I looked at my speedo for a split second and looked up to see the back of the car right in front of me. That cost me my bike as I hit the front brake and the bike slid out from under me and went across the road on its side and was collected by an oncoming car.

Now I make sure I keep a good distance. What really fucks me off though is when I'm following someone at a safe distance and the muppet behind me starts tailgating me because he obviously "thinks I'm going too slow and should be right behind the car in front of me". They've obviously never had a crash like I had if they think like that.

[sugilite:Me]

Really?
I always cover the front brake. My forefingers are always resting on the clutch and brake levers. It's just where they go when I hop on a bike.

Amen to that. It is a really good habit to get into, and as an added bonus it stops one from gripping the bars to tightly. Not having to curl, lift and then extend the fingers to get to the front brake lever can be the difference between making it, or not.

The way I look at the two second thing is that you have 2 seconds to come up with and execute a PLAN relevant to the road conditions, surrounding vehicles etc and then have a greater rate of retardation than the vehicle in front. Having a plan "B" also helps. Can everybody do all that in two seconds? Two seconds is a good starting point I suppose, but should not set in concrete. Riding to ones abilities and adding more time will only enhance and extend ones motorcycling fun, enjoyment and safety

[sunhuntin]

in town, i leave as much room as possible. either room enough for another vehicle, or a gap big enough for the number plate to blur. i figure if i can read their plate, im too close. open road, that gap gets doubled or more, unless im overtaking, in which case i get quite close in the lead up to the passing lane. if i dont do that, i dont have a shit show in hell of overtaking... which is why i dont often overtake. lol.

sometimes though, i find myself looking ahead of the car, and creep up. then i re-focus on the car, which makes me drop back pretty quick.

[madbikeboy]

Okay, I'm about to get some bad press - but hear me out first.

99% of the time, having a good gap is absolutely essential - this is especially true when over taking.

No disagreement at all from me.


But, there are a couple of instances where following closely makes sense.

In a target / risk rich environment, for example, heavy traffic in the morning - where the sun is behind you - think of this from the point of view of someone pulling across your lane to execute a right turn who will not see you with the sun in their eyes, then riding in a car's "shadow" can make sense.

The logic is that the car turning may not see you at all, but they are more likely to see a car - so, assuming you can see over the car, you can close the gap. I'm an ex-competitive cyclist, and that skill provides some practice for this - imagine riding on a track at 55kph with no brakes with an inch of separation.

Okay, so point is, you sit in the car's "shadow" - since you cannot safely project your presence, you let the car do it for you.

Your road position is critically important - I tend to sit with the centreline of the bike along the right flank of the car, a small push of the bar will see you alongside the car and safely braked (think about the advantage of being beside a car, rather than between the braking car and car behind that may not be paying attention to what's ahead).

Now, this was taught to me by an advanced instructor years ago, he was an ex-mc cop in the UK, and he taught police to ride... I have used it, and it has saved me on quite a few occasions - I've escaped from being sandwiched in a rear end accident twice now.

One other thing, a slight weave when you've got a car about to pull in front of you sometimes alerts them to your presence...

[sunhuntin]

i do the weave thing when coming up to one high traffic corner that has seen me hit in the past by a blind bitch. depending on the traffic and weather conditions, i also couple this with my high beam. i also use these as other situations demand. the brakes generally get covered here as well, and my speed drops to about 40-45k, specially when im riding into the early morning sun, and my sunglasses dont seem dark enough.

i try to avoid being hidden by the car in front. this means i will slow down till theres a gap im happy with, and then begin the weave so cars on both sides of an intersection can see me. i use a slow weave, staying left or right for a few seconds before moving over. this also allows me to see around whatever im following and see whats waiting at the intersection.

[xwhatsit]

then riding in a car's "shadow" can make sense.

That's what I slowly picked up on doing when in serious heavy traffic when commuting. Coming up Manukau Rd there's many places where car drivers try to turn right across you, no chance of visibility at certain times of the day.

Perhaps it's just because I ride a lightweight narrow bike from the 80s which doesn't stop in a hurry, but I don't usually hit the brakes. Handlebars are much more effective at hazard avoidance.

I do the `weave' thing too with oncoming right-turners. Turn the bike out in front of them so you're in a position where you'd just about clip their wing mirror, then come back into your normal road position a few metres away. Usually makes you noticeable.

[madbikeboy]

That's what I slowly picked up on doing when in serious heavy traffic when commuting. Coming up Manukau Rd there's many places where car drivers try to turn right across you, no chance of visibility at certain times of the day.

Perhaps it's just because I ride a lightweight narrow bike from the 80s which doesn't stop in a hurry, but I don't usually hit the brakes. Handlebars are much more effective at hazard avoidance.

I do the `weave' thing too with oncoming right-turners. Turn the bike out in front of them so you're in a position where you'd just about clip their wing mirror, then come back into your normal road position a few metres away. Usually makes you noticeable.

Yeah, I'm glad to see you do that. I've had an explanation from a occupational pyschologist that the weaving means you are either percieved as being wider (and therefore bigger and a threat), or it could be explained by the tracking outside what the motorist has already dismissed, and therefore attention gets reapplied.

[xwhatsit]

I think it's because when an object is just coming towards you in a straight line, the only indication it is moving (and hence attention-grabbing) is the fact that it is growing in size. Because motorcycles are narrow, this effect is pretty negligible compared to a wide car. When you swerve like that, you're moving across the field of view, so it's a big, obvious movement that they can see very well.